Birmingham City Council (202208926)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202208926

Birmingham City Council

20 March 2023

Our approach

The Housing Ombudsman’s approach to investigating and determining complaints is to decide what is fair in all the circumstances of the case. This is set out in the Housing Act 1996 and the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme). The Ombudsman considers the evidence and looks to see if there has been any ‘maladministration’, for example whether the landlord has failed to keep to the law, followed proper procedure, followed good practice or behaved in a reasonable and competent manner.

Both the resident and the landlord have submitted information to the Ombudsman and this has been carefully considered. Their accounts of what has happened are summarised below. This report is not an exhaustive description of all the events that have occurred in relation to this case, but an outline of the key issues as a background to the investigation’s findings.

The complaint

1. The complaint is about the time taken by the landlord to replace the loft insulation in the property.

Background

2. The resident occupies the property, a semi-detached house, under a secure tenancy. He lives there with his daughter and his partner, who has a health condition.
3. The loft insulation in the property required replacement after previous problems with the roof allowed birds to nest in the loft. The loft insulation became soiled with bird muck. The job was first raised by the landlord on 2 June 2021. The old loft insulation was removed on 16 February 2022, but new insulation was not installed at this time. The resident raised a complaint on 16 April 2022 as he was unhappy that no one had contacted him since the removal to arrange fitting of the new insulation.
4. In its stage one response, sent on 6 May 2022, the landlord explained that a sub-contractor was needed to complete the replacement and they would be in contact soon to arrange an appointment. No timescale was given for this. As no appointment was made, the resident requested for the complaint to be escalated. In its stage two response, of 21 July 2022, the landlord stated that the original contractor was no longer contracted to carry out repairs. A new job had been raised and the new contractor would be in touch within 30 working days of 15 June 2022.
5. The resident contacted the landlord on 22 August 2022 as he still had not been contacted about the replacement insulation. The insulation was replaced on 7 September 2022, and he contacted this Service on the same day.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

6. The resident has told this Service that he needs to keep his house warm due to his partner’s health condition. He says that the lack of loft insulation between February and September 2022 increased the cost of heating the property. There is no evidence to show that this was brought to the attention of the landlord during their complaint process, so this issue has not been investigated.

The time taken for the landlord to replace the loft insulation

7. This Service expects the landlord to have a clearly defined repairs policy, which provides its residents with timescales for repairs to be completed. The landlord has provided a copy of its policy. This shows three categories of repairs – emergency, urgent and routine. The landlord categorised this repair as routine, which means that it did not consider there to be a risk of injury or damage to the property. There is no evidence that the soiled insulation presented an immediate health and safety risk, so the landlord categorised the issue appropriately.
8. The repair policy says that routine repairs are targeted to be completed within 30 days of them being reported. In cases where the repair is larger and/or needs special materials, the resident shall be advised what timescales to expect. So, this Service would expect the landlord to set clear expectations to the resident if the work was going to take longer than 30 days and keep them updated throughout the process.
9. The landlord’s job records show that the job was first raised on 2 June 2021. The insulation was removed on 16 February 2022, and replaced on 29 September 2022. So, the job took 15 months to complete, significantly exceeding the timescale set out in the landlord’s repair policy by approximately 14 months.
10. The job records do not show any evidence of the landlord proactively updating the resident during this period or providing any accurate timescale for the work to be completed. The resident had to call the landlord to chase it for the completion of work throughout this period.
11. The landlord’s stage one response, sent on 6 May 2022, referred to the date on which a new job order was raised in February 2022 but failed to address the fact that the issue was originally reported almost a year earlier. It did not mention the resident chasing it for the repairs in August, October and December 2021, after the hole in the roof was repaired in June 2021. It also did not provide any timescale for the work to be completed, only stating that someone would be in contact soon to arrange an appointment. No evidence has been provided that any contact was made with the resident before he escalated the complaint on 12 July 2022. It did not consider the significant delays to undertaking the works nor did it advise her about how it intended to ensure that there would be no further delays.
12. The landlord told the resident in its stage two response that a change of contractor was the reason the work had not been completed. It said he would receive contact within 30 working days of 15 June 2022. This means that he should have heard from the new contractor by 27 July 2022, but he had to chase this up again on at least two occasions before it was completed on 7 September 2022.
13. Throughout the repair process there has been a demonstrated failure by the landlord to progress the repairs at a reasonable speed. It has blamed a changeover of repair contractor for the delays, but from the evidence from the job notes provided to this Service indicate that this changeover only occurred around May 2022, almost a year after the job was started. There is no evidence of any substantive reason for the delay up to this point.
14. The landlord has also failed to provide updates to the resident, except where he has contacted it to chase things up. And, where it has provided timescales for call backs and contact from contractors, it has failed to adhere to these. It apologised to the resident for the delay, but no financial redress was offered to him as part of the complaints process. 
15. The Ombudsman considers there to be maladministration by the landlord in its handling the replacement of the loft insulation. Despite its acknowledgement that there was a delay, which was contrary to its policy, it took no steps to put things right in its complaint response. This shows that it has not taken into consideration the lengthy delay to the work being completed, the poor communication throughout the process, and the likely adverse impact this issue has caused the resident and his family.
16. The Ombudsman’s remedies guidance provides for compensation from £100 to £600 for cases where there was a failure which adversely affected the resident and the landlord failed to acknowledge its failings “and/or made no attempt to put things right.” The events in this case indicate that payment at the higher scale of this sum is warranted for the issues discussed in the preceding paragraphs. 
17. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) requires landlords to aim at responding to stage one complaints within 10 working days, and stage two complaints within 20 working days. The Code states that a landlord should provide an update if it cannot meet these timescales, with an explanation of why it needs to extend the time. In this case, the landlord told the resident that he would receive the stage one response within 15 working days, which is outside the timescales required by the Code. It is to the landlord’s credit that it responded to both stages of the complaint promptly, and clearly signposted the resident to this Service. However, moving forward it is expected that a landlord sets out timescales in line with the Code when acknowledging complaints.

Determination

18. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of the time taken to replace the loft insulation.

Orders

19. The landlord to pay the resident £450 in compensation in recognition of the delays, poor communication and overall adverse effect to the resident as a result of the its handling of the loft insulation replacement.
20. The landlord to confirm to this Service that the above order has been complied with within 28 days of this report.

Recommendations

21. The landlord should consider the resident’s request for reimbursement of additional heating costs if he provides it with evidence of the energy costs during the affected period, as well as for the same period in the previous year for comparison.